


two hundred billion galaxies (but i'd come home to you)

by Kindness



Category: Canadian Ice Dancing RPF, Figure Skating RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-09-19 23:09:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17010936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kindness/pseuds/Kindness
Summary: Maybe, just maybe.(Written for Yuletide 2018. Temporarily postdated because I'm told it was buried by the time Yuletide opened. /shrug)





	two hundred billion galaxies (but i'd come home to you)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [resistate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/resistate/gifts).



> Pure fiction, et cetera! Also, recent events more or less excluded, as I wasn't sure if you were up to date. Hope you have a wonderful Yuletide! Thanks to my people, who will be named post-reveals.

**five: olympic medals.**

"Back to the basement," Scott jokes, rapping his knuckles against the display case. This is turning into a thing lately: him catching her getting sentimental over their own memorabilia. Stupid.

Tessa makes eyes at him – _shut up_ – then scoots away as, laughing, he reaches for her.

They've been touring almost nonstop for nine months. She thought she'd be sick of it by July, let alone November. The buses. The lack of privacy. The constant promotion. But as TTYCT winds down, it just feels more and more like – if she could bottle this whole year, and live inside it forever, she would.

(Really, she doesn't know why she's surprised. They're nothing if not workaholics.)

(Or she is, at least.)

A two-show last day in Newfoundland leaves not that much time to be nostalgic, which is good. One second they're in the tunnel at the top of show #1 – the pull of the music, the roar of the crowd – the next it's show #2 already, somehow, and their last "Moulin Rouge."

"Well, not really," says Scott, his mouth at her ear, her shoulder, as they wait to go on. Tessa feels restless all over, more nerve than muscle. She takes a breath in, out, and feels Scott breathe, too, warm against the nape of her neck. In time but out of sync.

"Next year in Europe? You think?"

"Maybe. Or just someday, for something." He's drumming out the "Roxanne" intro on her hip, his fingers circling each flourish. She wonders what he's picturing: some mysterious future tour, featuring all their greatest hits. Wonders where that fits into the rest of his picture, as recently and vividly described. "We did 'Carmen' again," he says, so _close_ –

"Right." She puts her hand over his, to still it. "For now, though – "

"Yeah." It sounds so easy, when he's there to say it. "Just in case, let's make it count."

(Not that she wants it to be easy. Not that she needs it to be easy.) (Easy: that's a thing they're not.) Tessa has a long list of things they're not, by now.

They are: on a flight to Toronto, first thing the following morning. They are: in a car from Pearson straight to another interview. They are: saying goodbye in the CTV studio lobby, half a dozen strangers looking on.

"Okay, well, drive safe," she says, feeling about fifteen years old.

"Thanks." He kisses her on the cheek, quick. "I'll see you Thursday."

She thought the whole plane ride home about reaching over, about taking his hand. About the ice in Pyeongchang and the village in Sochi and the podium in Vancouver. About her younger self, nervously asking, three weeks in advance: _can I hold your hand?_ About his younger self, literally laughing in her face. Then seeing her expression and rushing to hug her, so hard it almost hurt. Saying: _of course, of course._

 

**four: diaries (before she started calling them journals instead).**

At twelve, she falls in and out of love with Scott every day, with a regularity otherwise reserved for practice, homework, and changing her MSN name.

_In_ every time he smiles at her, every time he puts his arm around her in the kiss and cry, any time they're learning something and he's trying extra hard. _Out_ when he's frustrated or moody; when she tries to apologize and he shrugs her off, his face dark; when she sees the way he looks at other girls.

She fills page after page with simple, focused, non-incriminating sentences: _Scott was upset today. We're having trouble with our new curve lift._ Shuts the notebook when Jordan pokes her head in, even though she hasn't written anything too private. Just in case.

It's the last year she and Jordan will live in the same house. She doesn't know yet how much she'll miss the way Jordan looks at her, a little bit worried and also like she wants to laugh.

Tessa hates to be laughed at.

Scott is thirteen-turning-fourteen that season, quicker with a joke than ever. Too quick, sometimes. A lot of the time.

("Tess – " catching her, contrite, after practice at the Rink in the Park. "Come on, kiddo. I was just – I didn't mean it like that."

He's also started calling her _kiddo_.

"Okay," she says, but not looking at him, so he'll know she's still mad.)

And then other times, just being a pest on purpose –

("Cut it out!" after one too many nudges – his shoulder, his elbow, his foot – in the car. She's trying to read _Anne of Green Gables_ , feeling faintly nauseous.

"What's going on back there?" says Nonee, from the front.

"Nothing," they reply in unison, and both go still for about twenty seconds.

Scott's hand reaches out, in her peripheral vision, and Tessa snaps her head around to glare at him. But he's done being annoying, for now, apparently. _Sorry,_ he mouths. Even apologizing, he has this mischievous look, almost a smile. But she lets him anyway, lets him touch her sleeve, lets him take the book out of her hands and start reading it aloud.

_Boys,_ she thinks, sliding down in her seat, warm.)

At twelve, it feels like every week lasts forever. But of course, it doesn't. She's thirteen and living in Waterloo, fifteen and moving to Canton, almost before she knows it. The passage of time marked in absurd invented car games and the increasing realness of the Olympic possibility. Half-blank pages in a dozen different journals. Lists and tables and unfinished sentences.

_I feel... I want..._

_Best in the world,_ she inscribes, in small block letters. The end of every thought.

 

**three: times. you know. times.**

The first time is to staunch a wound. Sochi, December 2012, and they've just lost the Grand Prix Final again. "Carmen" can be arresting, it can be the edge of ambition, and it can still not be enough. It feels like a sign. It _is_ a sign.

A little alcohol, a little desperation, and there they are in her hotel room, Scott murmuring something unintelligible as he kisses his way down her neck. Nothing they do matters, so why not? Nothing they do matters, so she might as well _have_ him. All the moments she fantasized about, every secret wish of her adolescence, gone in a minute.

"You have a girlfriend," she says at one point, a last-ditch attempt to change her own mind.

Scott stops, but doesn't pull away. His chest rises and falls under her hand. "Yeah." He doesn't deny it, doesn't try to hedge. He doesn't say, _what about Ryan?_ and she doesn't, either.

Later, she reminds herself of this: that she didn't do it with any ridiculous expectation that he would – that things would change between them. She just did it because...she did it. Because she wanted to, and how else to confront being so obviously fucked, and anyway, in the moment, she didn't think she could bear sending him away.

The second time is to prove a point, or to blot out the first time, maybe. At least, for Tessa it is.

London, three days before Christmas, 2015. They've been texting, mostly about programs. Sometimes he calls. Tonight, he calls from a bar. "Hey," he says, his voice warmer than she's ready for.

"Hey," she says back, half a second too slow.

"What are you up to?" She can hear the background noise, wonders if he's in London.

He is. Just down the street. So...he comes over. Arrives on her front stoop looking rumpled and hopeful, walks through the door in a breath of cold air.

"Wow," he says, as he toes off his shoes and steps, cautiously, into her living room. It hits her – maybe it's been years since he last came by this house. "Place looks great."

The third time is in Nashville. November, 2018, with less than a week to go before closing night of Thank You Canada. Maybe it's...fuck, maybe it's just nostalgia.

They do the show, and then the afterparty, and then hit up a couple of bars for good measure – Ashley pushing karaoke, Tessa and a handful of others saying no – but the yeses, including Scott, carry the day. So she finds herself at a karaoke bar in Nashville, sandwiched between Kaitlyn and Eric, watching Scott and Charlie trade off verses of "8 Mile." Even a year ago, pitched this scenario, probably she'd have sooner eaten their Sochi medals than believed it. But a lot can happen in a year, or four, or six. Maybe.

Scott and Charlie come offstage laughing, thick as thieves. Tessa half watches as, back at their seats, Charlie leans over to say something and Scott gestures: _no way._ Wonders what Charlie could possibly have suggested, that Scott wouldn't do it. She tries to catch his eye a few times after that, but he's completely engaged, never seems to be looking at her.

So she's a little surprised when, half an hour before last call, he appears at their end of the table, reaching across Kaitlyn to tap her on the shoulder. He jerks his head, either _should we go?_ or _can we talk?_ both of which seem unexpected. But she nods, and squeezes her way out to join him.

They wind up walking back towards the hotel, just the two of them, talking circles around little more than, "Weird, right?" and "Do you remember?" Tessa wonders what this mood is, Scott with his hands in his pockets, saying nothing in particular. They pass through the quiet lobby, the elevator doors closing them in, and she still doesn't know.

And then he says, "T – " this odd note of urgency in his voice, and she does.

(She doesn't need him to say more. She doesn't want him to say more.)

She kisses him.

 

**two: surgeries, or people separated by a knife's edge.**

Scott sits on her bed in Canton while she packs, kicking his heel against the side. Normally, she'd tell him to quit it already, but today she lets it go. He watches as she gathers up a stack of leggings, all but the slightly scratchy pair she hates – and then, on second thought, those, too.

"What, you think Kate's going to charge you if you have to do a load of laundry?"

"It's a long time."

"Not that long," he says, as if by saying it that will make it true.

(Four to six weeks: that's what they tell her, so that's what she tells Scott. Four to six weeks, probably, she'll be gone.)

Sunday night in London, the surgery three days and four nights away. He comes over to say... "Well, not goodbye," awkwardly, standing in her parents' living room.

In the end, he just hugs her, holding on to her rather longer than usual. "Good luck, kiddo."

"Thanks," she says, into his shoulder. "I'll be fine."

"Oh, yeah, _you'll_ be fine." He lets her go, gives her a little squeeze as he does. "It's me I'm worried about. Who knows what Marina's going to do to me without you."

(Kidding or not, they are both worried about all the wrong things. _Best in the world,_ she thinks, bracing herself, as the IV is slid into her arm, very early Thursday morning. But the surgery itself is quick, painless, over in an anesthetized blink of the eye. Her mom leaves the voicemail for Scott, telling him it went well. Tessa listens from her recovery room bed, bleary, and tries to feel her legs. Nothing yet.

The nurse pokes her head in, brisk and efficient. "Come on, honey, you have to eat something, okay? We want to get you home before the drugs wear off.")

The first few days, her world is so narrow as to be unrecognizable. Sleep, ice, ice, sleep. The joint effort with her mom to sit up for a meal, the pain cost of a trip to the bathroom. She grows intimately acquainted with the only available views from her legs-elevated position on the couch: the ceiling, the slice of sky through the window, the TV. Saturday is a milestone – shower chair, kitchen trash bags taped tight around her knees. Clean hair is her biggest accomplishment this year, the silver medal at Worlds a distant memory from someone else's life.

It's Tuesday before it even occurs to her that she hasn't heard from Scott.

Thursday before it starts to make her anxious.

Friday before she lets herself consider the possibility, a hard knot of guilt in her stomach: maybe she won't. Maybe she _won't_ hear from Scott.

(It's a betrayal to even think it, to doubt him when he never doubts her. Scott is a lot of things, but he's always been there for her when it counts. Always. "See you soon," he said, when he left. So he will. Maybe he went to Montreal last weekend, trying to patch things up with Jess again. Tessa knows all the surgery stuff has made that...harder. But he'll be around this weekend for sure; it's Thanksgiving. He couldn't, he wouldn't, just completely disappear.

Well. Technically, she's right.)

Saturday, midafternoon and she's already exhausted, from trying to get up and move a little, from the alarming sensation of feeling her changed muscles shifting inside the bandages. From the tightness on her siblings' faces as they try not to flinch, watching.

_hey :) how r u?_

_Hi :) I'm good!_

_do u want me to come over?_

She does. She wants him so much, for a second it's hard to breathe. She wants him to visit every day, or call at least, and bring her flowers, like she's heard of other partners doing. She wants him to tell her about training, and make her laugh until she cries, and be there to hold her hand when she starts physio next week. It sounds pathetic even in her own head.

_No, it's okay,_ she taps out, and sends. Maybe she doesn't want him to see her like this anyway, capable of even less than she was before. Maybe...

Maybe he'll argue. Maybe he'll come anyway.

(He doesn't.)

 

**one: partner.**

She's nine years old the first time she thinks the words, quietly, already trying not to: _I love you._ They're waiting in the entryway of the Aud for his mom to pick them up, Scott vaulting continuously up onto the cement railing and walking along it like a balance beam, Tessa sitting on the top step, pretending not to watch.

"Hey, Tess – "

"You're going to get in trouble," she says, even though he's probably not, not unless his mom pulls up right this second. Automatically, she glances out the doors, looking, but the drive is empty.

Behind her, Scott dismounts; she hears his sneakers hit the ground. She expects him to run down again, but instead, he slides to sitting, facing her. "Hey," he says, and Tessa looks and finds him grinning. "You were really good today."

Oh. "Thanks," with a flush of surprised warmth. "You were really good too."

"Don't forget about me while you're at ballet camp, okay?"

He's kidding, his whole face a laugh. "Okay." She gets up to take a turn climbing the railing, can feel his eyes on her the whole time, the shape of his smile.

 

**maybe, just maybe.**

Scott's house in Ilderton is just a few streets over from his parents', but Tessa's only ever been there once. That was 2012, when he was first thinking about buying it.

"Wow," she says, standing in his entryway, peering uncertainly in. There's half a wall missing between his kitchen and living room, a fine coat of drywall dust on the floor. And yet he's put up Christmas lights. Just a few strings, but still. Something about the sight of them makes her heart turn over, the best and worst and most familiar feeling.

"Tree's upstairs," says Scott, low. She feels him touch her waist, gentle. "I assume that's why you're here, at...midnight. To see my beautiful décor."

(She was twenty-six years old the first time someone actually asked her, straight out: "Do you _want_ to be with Scott?" Everyone had always assumed, pretty much. _She_ had always assumed.

"...I don't know," she said, the words strange in her mouth. In a way, she had never thought about it before. Because one day she was eight years old, standing back to back with him while the rest of the rink rushed by, and the next their whole lives were in front of them, and all she had to do was say yes. Weekly goals, monthly goals. All this time, even the decision to return to competition: they just wanted the same things. Maybe sometimes it was each other. But mostly, it was more than that.)

Scott's bedroom is tidy, though largely unfurnished. Against the wall, there's a stack of framed prints, waiting to be hung. With a pang, she recognizes two of them from his place in Montreal.

The others are new.

"I like your tree," she says, at a loss to express the unmoored feeling in her chest. But it's true. It's small, with colored lights and only three ornaments, and no presents yet. The Scott-ness of it, of the whole place, is eminently lovable.

"Thanks." She hears, or maybe feels, him sit down on the bed behind her, waiting.

He was probably asleep before she rang the doorbell. "I should – " It's insane that she did this, that she's here. Not brave enough to call or text, but brave enough to show up unannounced in the middle of the –

"You should...?"

She turns, and he's just – looking at her. Not quite smiling.

"It's freezing in here," she says, and the corners of his mouth twitch.

(Lately she's been getting a lot of advice, solicited and otherwise. _You should think about what you really want,_ things like that. But maybe what she really wants is to just keep saying yes, and never actually have to choose. Or maybe she just needs more time to know. Or maybe she'll never know. Or maybe she's already chosen.)

"Hi," she says, a hopelessly unmeaningful thing to say.

Scott's face is hard to read, in the shifting light of the tiny Christmas tree. "Hi."

Under the duvet, she presses her cold feet against his calves, seeking a reaction. He grimaces but doesn't yelp, which is a little disappointing. She goes for his ribcage next – but he's onto her now, claps his hand over hers before she even brushes the hem of his T-shirt.

He has such good reflexes. And knows it, too; there's the grin she wanted. "Don't look so smug," Tessa says, and thinks about kissing him.

Maybe he knows; maybe it shows on her face. Maybe he just knows because he's Scott.

"I thought you wanted space," he says. Not accusing, not anything. Just, _I thought you wanted space._

"I thought so too." She pauses, unsure; tries to take her hand back, but he doesn't let her. "It was too much space." Suddenly, she's very glad it's dark.

"Yeah?"

"I – I missed you. Is that okay?"

His hand is warm. His bed is warm. Even the pause before he answers is warm.

"Yeah," touching her elbow. "Yeah," leaning in until their foreheads bump, surprising a shaky laugh out of her. "That's okay."

**Author's Note:**

> Now it is post-reveals! Many, many thanks to...
> 
> 1) [resistate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/resistate), for being the most wonderful recipient of all time, truly. Also, for semi-coincidentally (but not really coincidentally) writing me [this absolute joy of an MF/Patch fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17143673). Which everyone should read. Go. Now. Read it.
> 
> But really. From letter to reveals, you have been the stuff of Yuletide dreams. <3
> 
> 2) [flutz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flutz), who continues to be the reason I get up in the trash morning (...as opposed to, you know, getting up in the morning regular-style and focusing on my actual life and career). [Sonni89](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sonni89), who remained awake in a very unsuitable time zone to read over this fic for me at the last minute, who talked me off the I-should-default cliff at least twice, and who is generally an utter delight. [katayla](https://archiveofourown.org/users/katayla), best of Yuletide support systems, human sign-ups reminder machine, all-around darling.
> 
> 3) Keri Halfacre, resident Canadian and general writer-pal, who makes sure I change AIM references to MSN references and hangs out with apparent patience while I pitch endless variations on single phrases that no one cares about but me.


End file.
